Jealous of a notebook
by Lovelyspinster
Summary: The only thing sexier than a man that reads, is a man that writes. Arrow 4.06
1. Chapter 1 - Intro

She peered at him through the doorway. She could not help the smile that came to grace her face. Seeing him lying on their bed in their room. Writing. It had become such a familiar sight, so comforting. Yet, she was hesitant to enter and disturb this quiet scene with the conversation she knew they needed to have.

That Oliver liked to write was one of the best surprises of the five months they had spent together. At first, she did not really understand the habit. She would sometimes find him writing, but when she asked about him, he always distracted her with a question or a kiss.

 _Then, one night in Greece, she had found him on the beach of the B &B where they were spending the night near a bonfire, burning pages._

 _"What are you doing?" She asked with a smile._

 _"What? I thought you were having a shower, I'll join you in a moment." He said, his back still turned to her, and hesitation in his voice._

 _Felicity lightly touched his arm, as if to tell him to look at her. "Everything okay? Is there something you want to talk about?"_

 _"Am sorry. I guess, this must look weird" he answered pointing to the pages slowly burning away. "It is just a habit I developed"._

 _"You want to tell me about it? I mean you don't have to, but I know we have both been trying to be more open about everything, and that seems like something you may to talk about. But really you don't have to…" She rambled hesitant to push him. She had learned that Oliver was a delicate animal; it was always a balancing act between knowing when to push him to share and when to give him the space to find the words._

 _"Let's take a walk" He answered taking her hand in his own. They walked towards the water silently. After a few minutes of silence, Oliver started._

 _"You know it's difficult for me to talk about all that happens during the five years I was away, and even since then. It is not only that these experiences are painful to talk about, to explain to those who did not live them. It's also that for all those years, there was no one I could really talk to. No one to listen as I tried to process the crazy around me. After Hong Kong, for a while, I thought I was going crazy, all I could think about were the past three years of horrors but there was nobody I could tell without endangering them. So, I started talking to myself. I know. Crazy, I know. I could not escape the nightmares. I kept reliving each death, each fight. The days started blending together. I was drinking a lot. Then, one day, I remembered something Tatsu had told me about writing down your fears, and burning them to relieve the pain. I think it is a Buddhist tradition. So I started writing, not just what happened but how I felt about it. It was difficult at first to find the words, but knowing I was just going burn them away, made it easier. And it helped. At first, I had to burn the pages immediately, I could not bear to re-read anything, all I wanted was to burn the memories away. The hurt, the pain._

 _So, I still do it now. When a thought becomes too much, I write it down. But now I try, and wait a few hours, sometimes even a few days to burn them. I try to first come to term with my feelings. I have even been thinking about keeping some pages. Some of the things I write down these days are about the good things. Things I want to remember." As he said these last few words, he looked up to her, with a shy smile. He raised his hand to her cheek slowly caressing it._

 _Felicity had listened as he spoke, biting her lip not to interrupt him. Every time he opened up to her, felt so special. But now, she could not help herself, she raised her lips to him. "Thank you", she whispered just as she kissed him slowly._

 _She felt his arms embracing her in a tight hug, her head now resting on his chest. "Any day, you want to share any of these pages with me. I'd love to read you". She said quietly._

 _"Maybe"._

 _A few days later, she had bought him a leather-bound notebook. "For the thoughts, you want to keep close." She had told him._

Now, as she was watching him write. She felt jealous on his notebook. Of the secret it holds. Although, Oliver has become much much better at expressing his feelings. Sometimes, she just wished she could take a quick look inside.

But, no, like a grown up, if she wanted to resolve this situation with her boyfriend (argh she hates that word), she would have to woman-up and have a conversation with him.

"Hey." She said in a quiet voice. "We should talk about today."


	2. Chapter 2 - Oliver - 101

_Author's note : This is what I imagined what Oliver may have needed to write, after that first day, that first night back. I know the tone my not be faithful to the voice. Please bear with me._

SC - 2012

I am home. I feel like I need to write this down. It still does not seem real. Though I do not know if this is still home to me. But it is the home of the Oliver that was, of Ollie Queen, son, brother, philanderer.

I should be more prepared, it is not like it is my first time back in Starling City. But last time was different; I did not have to be me. Actually I specifically could not be. Last time was a strange experience, home was so close yet unattainable. I nearly stayed. Now, I am back, I chose to return but I must remind myself of my purpose here.

I have been some many different persons these past five years. But no mask has been harder to wear than the one I am wearing today. Pretending to be me to the people I should be closest to.

I wonder what they know or think they know about my time away. What can they truly expect me to be like had I truly spend five years alone on an island? My mom at least knows this not to be true, the scars, the tattoos I could not hide. At first I was afraid of the questions, but thanks to the Queen policy of "Don't ask if you know you wont like the answers", I was asked fairly little. I sticked to my story: I was the only survivor; I washed up on Lyan Liu where I struggled to survive until I was found by Chinese fishermen. Even after I attacked her that night, when my hands when on her neck, when she saw the terror in my eyes. My mother did not ask, my mother did not want to know. In so many ways, it is a blessing, though I cannot fell but be saddened by her indifference, her unwillingness to even attempt to face who I have become. How would she react if she knew the truth?

It has been a day and I am exhausted. Having to watch every word that comes out of my mouth, to calculate my every move. I nearly got made so many times today. I was sure they would see through the fake smiles, and the affected laugh. I guess I forgot that they have no reason to believe me less than truthful.

Thea was the hardest to face. I know she is doing well, I know she needs a brother. But she does not need me, I have no love to give, no wisdom to impart, no hope to share. These are the attributes of a man, I am no man: I am a weapon forged in the fires of pain by one adversary after the other.

I was a bored spoiled bastard. I had no purpose, I lived a life of idleness, but I lived. Now, I only know how to survive, but my time (it is not a life) has a purpose, a singular goal to repair the damage done by my father and his peers. To achieve that goal, I have to forsake all other fantasy. For years, when Starling and its inhabitants were but a distant memory, I sometimes allowed myself to fantasized about what I would say, what I would do should I go back. But I am not back, not yet.

I want to tell myself that I turn a blind eye to the suffering of those closest to me because now is not the time to repair my relationship, to rebuild my loved ones, that my mission is more important, but I also now the truth is more perverse: I do not know how to repair, I do not know how to rebuild. The man they made of me only knows how to hurt, how to tear down. This is the man I need to be now, this is the only man I can be.

After all like an old enemy used to say: _"There are people in the world who deal only in extremes, and it would be naive to think that anything less than extreme measures will stop them."_


	3. Chapter 3: Oliver - 123

_Author's note: Somebody suggested Tommy's death would make for an interesting journal entry. So I gave it a try. These are not meant to be factual or descriptive. I hope you'll enjoy it._

SC – 2012

It should have been me. It should have been me. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I want to scream. But nothing comes out. I can't breathe! It's like I have forgotten how. My chest hurts and burns all at once.

I feel like I am blind, like I am deaf, but it is not silence or dark around me but an overwhelming mess of noises and images. I need the world to slow down.

My legs gave out. I slid against the wall, until I fell to the floor. I run here from the CNRI. I do not know how I found my way among the chaos. How I found my way to my other lair, the one I told no one about, not even Dig or Felicity.

It is nothing but a dark and cold basement, but here there is no distraction from the pain. I do not want to be distracted. I want to feel it with all its might.

My chest burns but I wish it would just explode. I want to die. I have prayed for death before. Sometimes, I think the only reason, I survived so long is pride. If I were to die, it would be on my own terms.

But now, I feel like there is nothing left. I have failed. I failed my father, and the mission he gave me. I failed my mother, I failed to reach her.

I failed… Tommy.

My fingers faltered as I wrote his name. I cannot believe it. I can't think it. But at the same time, I want to hurl the words at myself like I would a deadly weapon. I do not deserve not to face it. It is MY fault. Mine.

I wish I had the strength to break my hands against the walls, I want to hurt. I should hurt more than I do. I want to feel the pain that has taken over my heart. Physical pain I know how to deal with. This sense of loss. I can't.

He is not the first one I lost. But he did not belong to my world, he was no soldier. He did not live in the dark of cold basements, and deadly decisions. He lived out there with the real people in the light. He should not have born the consequences of my failures.

He died a hero, saving the woman he loved. He died thinking me a murderer. That is only fair, I killed him. I am the one who was supposed to die. It should have been me. Maybe it did not deserve it yet.

I want to stay here forever, in the dark, in the cold. I do not want to see light. I do not want to face the outside. I can't. I can't. I am not made for the light anymore, and I should not have tried. I should not have tried to be in their light. I should have kept to the shadows. I thought I could pretend. I thought the walls I had built would be high enough to shield me from their humanity, and them from the hurt that I bring to those around me. I was fooling myself.

I wish I could die here, I wish I could just waste away, disappear. I do not deserve it yet. I have not paid my penance. I do not deserve the sweet relief of nothingness. But I will not live. The world is not made for the likes of me.

I won't stay here. I can't keep putting them at risk. I wish I could just fall to the shadows. But I can't just stay here. I need to be far from them. I need to be far from the temptation of love and friendship. I need a place where I do not have to live, where I can just survive, and feel the everyday punishment of being alive.

I won't live, I will serve my sentence in purgatory.


	4. Chapter 4 - Oliver - 201

_This is supposed to take place in 201 – When Oliver comes back to Starling._

SC - 2013

What have I accomplished during this past year? I am looking at the city I was unable to save. The rubble of the fallen buildings all around, the chaos I was unable to prevent. I sacrificed everything to a mission that I failed. Can they not understand that. I had one purpose and I could not achieve it. What does it make me?

They do not understand because they have a place in this world, a use, a purpose, they bring something to the world around them, not as members of Team Arrow but as themselves. I know, because they have brought me so much that I did not ask for, that I did not know to ask for. They are people, they have failings, but beyond that, they are good people, and good people are dearly needed. If only to stand and be counted. To remind us all of what we are capable of.

Diggle has a strength, he knows right, he is principled, he is reliable. He naturally provides support and advice to those around him. Even when he wavers, he can bring himself back.

Felicity, she is light in the face of overwhelming darkness. She has a strength that does not come from physical force or a sense of superiority, it comes from faith in the good of others. She is able to see the good in others, she saw it in me even when I was just a killer.

I was never more than a weapon. Before the Island I was not a killer, but I was a waste. I did not bring anything to others. Being the hood, taking on my father's mission was the only way I knew how to make my life worthwhile. What am I now if I cannot be that? I cannot go back to being Oliver Queen what has he ever brought to the world? What can he truly be?

I was never a religious person. I was never able to see the balance of good and evil in the world around me. I cannot see the forces at play. I wish I could. I wish I could know why I am still here. Still standing.

For a long time on the Island, I thought it was all karma. That all the hurt was just divine justice for how I acted of the first 20 or so years of my life. For my carelessness towards the feelings of others, for what I had done to all the women in my life. But Sara, Shado… they did not deserve what had happened to them. So they could be no justice. So what is there?

When I became the Hood. I felt like it was fate. Sort of. For years, I had been beaten into a weapon. This was the accomplishment of the only destiny I saw for myself. I would fight Evil. And the only way I knew how to was in being evil.

I have seen evil. I cannot ignore its existence. I have seen it use our most primal fears to make us into weapons of destruction. I have felt my baser instincts take hold of me. I saw Slade be turned into a monster. I was betrayed. I betrayed.

I am not sure I truly ever saw proof of the existence of Good. I did see regret and shame in my father's eyes when he asked me to right his wrongs. I saw what one can do for family, but these actions although they came from a place of love, often came at a heavy price. Look at my mother, her selfish need to protect her family, her pride and her shame, lead to the death of hundreds.

I had tried fighting out of anger, out of shame. I tried fighting for somebody else's sake, but I failed. I do not know any other way to fight. I cannot be a killer. I do not think I can ever be a killer again. Not after Tommy. So what am I now?

I came back to Starling City, because Dig and Felicity told me Thea needed me, that QC needed me.

Deep down I know I came back for a far more selfish reason. I came back because I could not hide any longer. I could not be this person that indulges in self-pity, this person that allows himself to flee and hide. That was the Oliver of before the Island. I cannot be him anymore.

I want to be more than this self-indulgent hurt animal, licking his wound. Pretending that because he is hurt, he is entitled to hide.

Can I really be more? I do not know where to find the strength. I look at Dig and Felicity and I know they can. They have this well of good within. They will fight because they know it is the right thing to do and that is enough. They sacrifice, not because of a false sense of pride, but because they believe in the righteousness of their goal.

I want to find that strength. So maybe I will try to be Oliver Queen. To give him a purpose. I want to learn to build and not tear down. I want to learn to give. I want to learnt to see the good in others, and rays of light in the darkness. If there is not fate, then there are only the decisions we make. So, I will take it now: the decision to do things differently, to find the strength.


	5. Chapter 5 - Oliver - Laurel - 105

_I am not a fan of Laurel today, but I liked her in Season 1. This is what I imagined Oliver may write after Ep. 105._

Laurel. It was as if she was to forever be the victim of my selfishness. When her father arrested me earlier today, I knew I would have to ask her to be my lawyer, after all I needed to ensure everybody believed Lance arrested me out of anger and grief, and what better reminder that to have his daughter defend me.

But now I fear that I had an ulterior motive I may not have been completely aware of. Maybe I did want her to know what had happened to me. Maybe I wanted her to feel sorry for me, to feel my pain and comfort me. Maybe I wanted her to look at me like she used to.

I could still hear her telling her father about me: _"He is a killer"_. Maybe in a strange way I wanted to make her understand what had made me this way. After all, she had be the one to forgive me, every time I had betrayed her in the past, and in the back of my mind I still held onto the hope that she would forgive me for that too.

I knew that by the time I came back she was more myth than woman in my mind but I could not escape the memory of her. She was the last regret of Ollie Queen. She was the only part of the old me that I truly regretted even though I knew the possibility of us was long gone. She had moved on, and the man she had loved had long ago disappeared.

When I came back, I had to see her. I felt a strange pull. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew if was forcing her to face a demon she was not ready for, but I needed to see if she resembled the portrait I had drawn of her. It had been five years after all.

She was better. She was strong. Beautiful and righteous in her anger. She was a lawyer defending those who could not defend themselves. I had become a killer, she had become a knight. That was good. That was another reason not to try to reopen that door.

But still today when she came to my door and apologised. I could not help but feel hope. Maybe I had not lost everything. Maybe I could still be loved. Because if she had loved Ollie Queen, maybe she could come to love me too. For a minute, I dared to hope. I let her glimpse at those five years. I let her know how much the memory of her had meant to me during that time. I kissed her. I lost myself in the comforting familiarity of her lips. She tasted like forgiveness. It was not fair to her, to let her open herself to the possibility of me, while I was hiding so much from her still.

I knew at that moment I would have to learn to better lie to her and push her away. I would have to learn to better lie to myself about what she still meant to me because she deserved better than my selfishness.


End file.
